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59
60
January/February 2018^ DISCOVER^63
TOP: AUGUSTO ZAMBONATO. BOTTOM: MATTHEW BAKER/PRESS ASSOCIATION VIA AP IMAGES
Go West, Young Tree
❯
AMERICAN TREES are marching west,
and that’s a surprise to ecologists.
As the climate warms, researchers
expected many plant species would move
farther north — and to higher elevations
— as they chase cooler climes. But more
trees have actually expanded west over
recent decades, according to a May study in
Science Advances.
A team led by scientists at Purdue
University examined about 30 years of
U.S. Forest Service data covering 86 types
of trees in the eastern United States. In
addition to the general westward migration,
their study showed the trees aren’t moving in
unison. While leafy deciduous trees, such as
oak and maple, were more likely to go west,
evergreen trees more often pushed north.
The researchers say their findings indicate
that moisture currently plays a more
important role than temperature for many
species. The trees are simply following the
rain. — ERIC BETZ
A Flu-Fighter’s Fall From Grace
❯
WHEN TAMIFLU came on the
market in 1999, it promised
to curtail severe influenza
symptoms and even save lives,
especially among the frail elderly
and the chronically ill.
In 2010, in the midst of the
H1N1 swine flu pandemic, the
World Health Organization
(WHO) designated Tamiflu as an
“essential medication,” encouraging
governments to stockpile it. As a
result, the drug has generated over
$9 billion in sales worldwide just
from government purchases.
But Roche, Tamiflu’s maker, had
buried the results of several clinical
trials. Independent reviews of this
unpublished research, in 2012
and 2014, found no evidence that
Tamiflu reduced hospitalizations
or deaths; it also caused adverse
effects. That should have been
the end of Tamiflu. But it was
not until June that WHO finally
downgraded the drug on its list of
core medications.
Critics blasted both WHO’s delay
and Roche’s failure to release all
of the clinical trial data, including
some of the largest studies.
University of Georgia epidemiologist
Mark Ebell, who analyzed some
of the unpublished data, echoed
an editorial in The British Medical
Journal when he called the
situation a “multisystem failure”
that diverted public health dollars
into buying a marginally effective
drug instead of using them for
research into better treatments or
more pressing health care concerns.
— LINDA MARSA